Perimenopause — literally “around menopause” is the time of hormonal change leading up to menopause and the year or two afterwards. Although the hormone levels and balance usually start changing in the thirties, the beginning signs are subtle. You’ll probably start noticing perimenopause symptoms, such as menstrual irregularity or night sweats, sometime in your mid to late 40s. But some women notice changes as early as their mid-30s and a few as late as their 50’s or even 60’s.
The age when perimenopause starts, how long it lasts, and the symptoms experienced vary greatly from woman to woman. My friend, Barbara’s periods just stopped one day. Bam! No other symptoms! I, on the other hand, suffered through almost 10 years of weird symptoms before things finally calmed down.
Perimenopause can last a few years, ten years or even longer. There is currently no way to tell in advance or during the process when it will start, how long it will take you to reach menopause, or how severe your symptoms will be.
The average age of menopause is 51. A year or two after menopause, your perimenopause symptoms should subside and you’ll have graduated into the relative calm of post-menopause.
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It’s shown that perimenopause there is too little natural progesterone and as a result symptoms such as anxiety, breast tenderness, headahces, sleeplessness, weight gain and much more. Weight gain seems to be a large factor; this is caused when you prevent your thyroid from functioning due to your improper levels of progesterone.
I know this mentions that perimenopause starts in your 30s but I acually am still in my 20s and have started to develope some of these symptoms, I have done a lot of resaerch because I want to be able to have kids, bioidentical hormones were my key to helping with my symptoms, this site helped me to realize what I was going through too: http://www.bodylogicmd.com/for-women/perimenopause
I want women to know that you dont just suffer from these symptoms if you are suffering from perimenopause. I am only 23 and I suffere from a hormonal imbalance i have low progesterone levels and suffered from insomonia and weight gain. I started seeing Dr.Thackrey of BodyLogicMD of Ft.Lauderdale and he prescribed me progesterone i ahve been on it for 10 months and have never felt better.To find a BodyLogicMD doctor near you check out this site below.
Amanda, Elizabeth, Lauren,
Thanks for your comments. You’re right. I think these symptoms of hormonal imbalances which are occurring in younger women are caused by the artificial chemicals and toxins in our environment … especially the pesticides and hormones in our food that often have estrogenic properties leading to estrogen excess. And a resulting lack of progesterone. As you said, high estrogen and low progesterone interfere with thyroid and other endocrine system functioning.
I’m so glad you found a doctor that is helping you.
Best,
Catherine
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